Japan’s World Robot Summit posts challenges for teams

Japan is holding a huge robot celebration in 2018 in Tokyo and 2020 in Aichi, Fukushima, hosted by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and industry (METI) and the New Energy Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO). This is a commercial robotics Expo and a series of robotics Challenges with the goal of bringing together experts from around the world to advance human focused robotics.

The World Robot Summit website was just launched on March 2, 2017. The results of tenders for standard robot platforms for the competitions are being announced soon and the first trials for competition teams should happen in summer 2017.

There are a total of 8 challenges that fall into 4 categories: Industrial Robotics, Service Robotics, Disaster Robotics and Junior.

Service: Automation of Retail Work Challenge – making robots to complete tasks eg. shelf stocking and replenishment multiple types of products such as foods, interaction between customers and staffs and cleaning restrooms.